


The First is the Last is the Only

by lindsey_grissom



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-14
Updated: 2009-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>She isn't your dying leader but when you close your eyes she's there in your dreams with her red hair fading and her arms open wide in a benediction.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The First is the Last is the Only

She isn't your dying leader but you feel her life as it slips away, goes almost too far before springing back just when you think everything is over. You feel her when you twist yourself around Gaius and whisper God's words in deaf ears, you feel her like she's just there watching you and it takes everything in you not to turn around and search. You've never met her but you know her and it's only your research that tells you she's real. You feel her when the human worlds end, still pulsing with life when you're reborn. You don't feel her when downloading and you miss her though you shouldn't know. You feel her when you spin on your heel, when you run from the human survivors. Pain in your chest that's not yours and you feel her. And when she gasps for breaths you feel her like she's your own body and you breathe for her because she's fading and you're not downloading. The Gaius that follows you doesn't know and you keep her from him because you don't want to see the twist in his mouth that tells you she isn't as real as you know.

She isn't your dying leader but when you close your eyes she's there in your dreams with her red hair fading and her arms open wide in a benediction. She holds out her hands but drops them before you reach her. Turns from you and walks into the woods; the humans are waiting and she chooses them over you. You've upset her and you don't know why. You close your eyes and open them to the _Basestar_. It's empty and plain so you change it until the woods are there around you and you can pretend she's just steps away. That she'll be back for you when she can, when you've shown her you're deserving. The others have seen her. The Threes and the Eights. Your heart pumps loudly when they describe her because you know her and they don't. But they've met her and you haven't and you don't understand how they can be more worthy than you. They don't see her like you do, in your dreams with pain in her eyes and tubes in her skin. And then you see her. She stands against the backdrop of trees and her hair is dull and her arms are flung wide to hold back the children of her school. Your dreams have been realised and you know what she'll do because it's all happened before, but you've tried to make peace and something new tells you things will change. She turns from you and walks back to her fleet and when you're laying empty in Gaius's bed you learn that that something was hope and you still aren't worthy.   
She isn't your dying leader but when the cancer comes back you wake on a scream. You feel her pain and see her fear and you don't tell your sisters or brothers because they wouldn't understand. They don't know her like you do and you know they never will.

She isn't your President but you follow her. Across time and space you follow in her trail. They tell you it's the trackers they have placed, the sleepers not awoken. The ship leaking waste. But you know that it's her because she calls to you at night and your body sings every time you jump where she's been. You hear her voice in your ear and she's the angel to your Gaius. You don't understand; why your God chose you to follow her, why she makes you want to. You think you're mad because your brothers tell you of her anger and her rage. Of the ease she kills them and that can't be the woman you know. But every night she turns away from you and you know your brothers have done something unforgivable in her eyes.

She isn't your President but you bow to her grace. You laugh when her hair comes alive and her eyes sparkle with joy and just because she isn't looking at you, it doesn't make it any less. You know the truth of her cure because you see through her life and when you follow your sisters to their land you know she won't be harmed. There's something more to her than even you know, but you will know because you know her and you think that she knows you too. She doesn't see you the way you see her, but she doesn't turn so fast in your dreams and you know the end time will come. She commands your respect and even fallen and bare you can't stop imagining her hands in your hair. Her lips against your skin. She isn't like Gaius she's something more. There's an aura of power that smells like the sweetest of fruits and it surrounds her when she screams out in pain. You close your eyes to her whimpers and behind your lids she keeps turning away. But you chase her until you find yourself in the middle of her fleet and the bars at your back feel like the end of the line. She isn't your President but when her men ask your help you tell them all that you can. You feel her pride in your words and she returns to your side when Gaius goes away.

She isn't your Prophet but you believe in her more than you should. Before you saw her you knew that her words were truth meant to heal. She weaves lines in your heart that tangle with the wires that support you. She makes you feel human before you bring them down, and their loss becomes as much yours as hers, because she wishes it. She doesn't know what she is but you know that she will. You don't know that yourself but it isn't your place. You're God's messenger to the worlds and he will tell you when he thinks he should. You believe in her forgiveness when she shows everything else and it takes the Three's words to make you doubt all you know. You put your faith in her and not your God when you send Hera back. You trust that she'll save her when you know your God can't and you sit in her brig with her beat in your head.

She isn't your Prophet but when she visits you in hours too early to count you commit her words to memory. Because this is the first time she speaks outside of your head and her voice is the way that you hear it. You're connected to her in a way you thought was unique and Gaius laughs when you trace her lips in the space in the dark. You turn from him and your people and you put your life in her hands. It feels right and familiar and you start to understand; you've been here before.

She isn't their God but they believe in her. They follow her words like the lines from her scriptures and she could have their worship if she needed that too. She has a body that's dying and you feel it with every pulse that takes her away. She pushes poison in her veins and you start to hope that it works. Every time that you see her she fades a little more from the woman they all know. But she's growing into someone you always see and the others see it too because they listen to you both when you speak. The humans watch her in fear for her life not her soul and when you catch that glint in her eye you know it won't be long.   
She calls you by a name you've long forgotten and if the hybrids talk in riddles then she must have taught them too. She gives her last moments to the humans sharing her heart and you see through dead eyes when her people find her promised land.

She isn't their God but she's yours and when she comes back you hold her hand as she breathes and the smile on her face feels like coming home. And she has. She is more than you all and you're just part of her whole and you know she isn't surprised that her creations are here. She designed for perfection but her feelings were flawed and when she looked at your weaknesses she wept for the truth. She tells you she knows you again and again and her eyes speak of cycles without any stop. Your brothers and sisters bow in her wake and she shatters their plans with a shake of her head. The humans were made by those better than she and she pays for her foils with the their blood on her hands. Thirteen tribes in one land that would die from the start and she sent them away before her children were grown. She strokes your cheek as she teaches and you absorb more than her words. With her death on the planet she gave humans her life and she spends every turn of the windmill in the service of their flight.   
She takes you away where she can do no harm and her price in the heart that she leaves on the new planet behind. You know why you see her, why you know her as you do. She made you in the image she wished to be and when she hides as their savior she trusts you to find your way.

She makes your words all true because she loves you all. And no life is more sacred than the one that came before. When you're away from the humans she finally rests at your side. No one knows where you've run to and your brothers don't dare to ask. There are shadows in her eyes as you promise no return and as she fades into the star her words ring in your hair.

_"All this has happened before and will happen again."_

 

**End.**


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